Film & Theatre, Reviews | Posted on September 9th, 2026 | return to news

Review: Killjoy

Bournemouth Little Theatre, Winton

By Geoff Spick

“I can explain everything!” Is, by some theatrical law, the second greatest line to end any production on, after “Hang on a minute, lads. I’ve got a great idea.” As such, it gets overused in film and theatre, but in the case of Killjoy, we can let that slide.

Killjoy is a rare stage performance, based on the farce thriller penned by Douglas McFerran, actor, script writer and consultant on Sliding Doors, Johnny English among others. A single-room affair, Killjoy unceremoniously deposits Max Bentley (Topher Lynn), sobbing into his own scenery, as an actor hitting the skids with career and financial status unravelling before him.

Directed by Barry Gray, it isn’t long before Max’s Wife Hermione (Kim Gelliot) steals the show, with everyone in the theatre wishing they could carry her level of screeching mania into our own domestic arguments, as she scours the set for a joint to calm things down.

Bringing spikiness and glamour to proceedings, Joy played by Linda Salata and Rosie (Lauren Killham) are scheming with and twisting Max, powered by his ego and arrogance, to their own ends. Their power drives Killjoy forward with pace, clever one-liners and enough physicality to burst out of the small stage.

Will Max survive his lurid desires and financial peril as Joy looks to cut him from flagging TV cop show Killjoy and Rosie wants to write his biography? Or will his wife’s ebbing rage, or the randomly European workmen out the back send him over the edge? Killjoy really could go in any direction, and the audience is very much dragged along giddily for the ride, as a storm rages outside.

Come the second half, and the plot accelerates at a hectic pace with the arrival of the police. Who will suspicion fall upon, and how will the suspects explain away the glaring holes in their alibis and suspicious knowledge of vintage car mechanics?

Tightly written, directed and acted, there is barely a gap to pause for breath across Killjoy’s compact exploits. In those few gaps, there’s time to spot a little of Basil and Sybil Fawlty in the Bentley’s relationship and physical performance, a very good thing.

That’s before Max leaps to further heights of mania, with his mental-juggling and contract negotiations in the face of the law, aka Detective Inspector Vivian, smoothly delivered by Andy Gill as perhaps the only likeable character on set.

Among all this, the trio of leading ladies swan elegantly in-and-out, dropping acid-laced truth bombs and danger-close incitement on poor Max, as he is dragged from climax to climax, leaving us on our own mental conclusions after that inevitable line, “I can explain everything.”

I have my own views, and you can spend plenty of time hatching yours, if you manage to catch this gripping performance.